


Hypnagogia

by editorbit



Series: Jerome & Jeremiah Character Studies(?) [23]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Arkham Asylum Patient Jerome Valeska, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Shot, POV Jerome Valeska
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28054995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editorbit/pseuds/editorbit
Summary: "Hypnagogia.""What is that?"
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska & Jerome Valeska, Jeremiah Valeska/Jerome Valeska
Series: Jerome & Jeremiah Character Studies(?) [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514969
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Hypnagogia

Life used to be very different, he muses. So much so, in fact, that the life he once lived is now merely a myriad of fragmented memories. Floating about like fish in a pond, they submerge in the shadows of his subconscious mind. They only ever dare surface in the safety of the dark silence filling his cell late at night, and as he just lies there in his hypnagogic state, they appear before him like phantoms of his past.

They’re all different, varying in age, importance and emotional connection. Some are so faint he barely ever spots them, never venturing too far into his consciousness. If they do, they slip through his fingers like water and evaporate when he reaches out to touch them, leaving no trace. They leave him with nothing but faded scents of unknown origins, or muffled, familiar voices of faceless people. These never last long, disappearing to never be seen again, and then be replaced. He can feel the warmth they held slowly but surely fade away and die out like an unattended flame. He figures they must have been some of the nicer ones, because they were oh-so warm once. Some, on the other hand, are crystal clear. He can touch them, feel them, see them and hear them, and they won’t disappear. They play before him like films, affecting every single one of his senses, and he lets them.

And then among them all there are some that are bad, and some that are good, though which is which he doesn’t really know.

Sometimes when his eyes slip shut, he’s back in the small, cramped trailer on the night he murdered his mother. The smell of stubbed out cigarettes and spilled alcohol hangs heavy in the air and fills his nose with every inhale. It’s acrid, stale and hard to breathe, yet familiar and almost comforting in a strange way, as if he’s come home to someone he has missed dearly. This heavy, tainted air is all he’s ever known; the one that clogs up the inside of your throat, makes your eyes water, and permanently damages your lungs. It makes Jerome feel more alive than any clean, crisp air ever could. 

The blood is everywhere. It’s imbedded in the material of his flimsy sweater, creating dark, murky patches and weighing the thin fabric down. It’s covering his hands, drying up and peeling when he moves his fingers and pulls out the hatched he had tucked away in his jacket. It’s all over his shoes, coating the underside to the point he still leaves faint prints that if one were to follow, would tell the tale of what he just did. It forms a twisted, grotesque image of the very end of someone’s miserable life, and it is one hell of a work of art. 

The trailer is ever so quiet. Save for the occasional car honking somewhere outside, the odd bird singing its last song for the day and the low hustle and bustle of the circus shutting down for the night, he only hears his own calm breathing. Remnants of adrenaline lingers in his veins, making his fingers twitch and his skin tingle. He stands there in the dark and listens; for her obnoxious snoring, for her distasteful noises of pleasure, for her foul words, but it’s silent. The trailer is quiet and dark, and has never felt less cramped and small than it does now. He could get used to this.

Sometimes when he closes his eyes, it just gets dark. His surroundings are but a blur, merely a myriad of colours blending into one another and forming nothing but nonsense. His eyes try to focus, but there is nothing for them to focus on and his head hurts. He is in a deteriorating painting without motives or meanings, and only the essence of what was is left to tell him what he’s looking at. 

There is the smell of burnt cookies and warm meals in the air, the sound of laughter and soothing voices of faceless people in his ears, and the taste of sugar and milk on his tongue. Whether or not any of it is real and has happened, he doesn’t know. There is something oddly familiar about it, yet it’s foreign and rings no bells. He figures they’re all his own memories, resurfacing from where they have been residing in the darkest corners of his consciousness, for a last goodbye before they cease to exist. They only last a night, and there is nothing left to dwell on.

Sometimes as he lies there in his cell, he’s back with Jeremiah. 

They sit outside the trailer in the grass. It’s a warm and pleasant summer. The sun peeks out from behind the passing clouds in the sky, heating up their skin and leaving the ground warm beneath them. The smell of popcorn and sweets, as well as the sound of people talking and laughing linger in the air. Jeremiah, young and baby faced, sits across from him in the grass with pen and paper in hand. The pen is a cheap, flimsy thing Jerome snatched from a vendor, and the paper is just a page from a notepad he found somewhere in the trailer, but Jeremiah hadn’t minded. 

On the contrary, his brother had been ecstatic to get some proper paper to draw on for once, and Jerome enjoyes seeing him happy. He rips out more pages, any he can find in the circus, and steals more pens in several different colours, and no matter how mad the vendors get when they spot him or how angry their mother becomes when she finds out, Jerome doesn’t mind. He likes watching Jeremiah draw and write. His brother knows how to draw straight lines, and how to spell difficult words, and how to draw all kinds of animals they had at the circus. The words he endures are mean, and the punishments he receives are harsh, but seeing Jeremiah’s eyes light up like that makes it all worth it. 

They sit in the trailer, in Jeremiah’s small bed. It’s dark and cold, and their only source of light and warmth is the candle in Jerome’s hands. The only window in the cramped room is small, and doesn’t shut no matter how hard they try to close it. Sometimes when it rains, the curtain gets wet, and when the wind is howling outside, it gets so cold Jerome almost can’t feel his fingers. Jeremiah holds his hands in his own when it gets that cold, rubs them harshly and blows on them until they’re warm again. 

Between them on the bed lies a magazine, because they don’t own any books. Neither of them have any money and books are very expensive. The closest thing they have are their mother’s magazines, and she has so many that she never notices when one goes missing here and there. Jerome holds out the candle between them in his hands as Jeremiah reads. His voice is quiet and hushed, merely a whisper, as if he’s telling a secret, uttering words only meant for their ears and no one else’s. 

"Hypnagogia."

Jerome enjoys listening to his brother read to him, whether it be from a magazine like this one or just a passing sign on the road to another city. There is just nothing quite like nights like these. Just the two of them, him and Jeremiah, curling up under the covers in one of their beds after a long day of hard labour, lighting a single wonky candle in the dark room, and pulling out a magazine they had found among their mother’s things. 

"What does that mean?"

Unlike his younger brother, Jerome can’t read just yet. Sure, he knows the occasional letter - mainly just the ones spelling out his own name - but other than that, letters are merely odd little shapes that somehow, to some people mean something and make sense.

"Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep." 

Jeremiah is one of them, because he knows all the letters of the alphabet, knows what the complicated, long words mean, and knows how to pronounce them and spell them out. Jerome, on the other hand, prefers more physical means of communication. He supposes that is partly why he enjoys listening to Jeremiah read to him. He doesn’t know how to read, so Jeremiah does it for him, and he doesn’t know how to throw punches, so Jerome does it for him. Together, they can do both.

"Mental phenomena that may occur during this threshold consciousness, or mind awake body asleep state, include; hallucinations, lucid thought, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis."

They sit outside the kitchens together. It’s raining heavily, the metal steps they sit on are wet and their clothes are getting damp even with the comically umbrella sheltering them. The air smells of candy floss and popcorn, of sugar and grease, of hotdogs and pretzels. They’re both hungry, not having eaten anything since breakfast; water with a questionable taste and dry bread with strawberry jam. Neither of them have any money, because neither of them get paid for anything they do. So what do they do?

They steal of course, or rather; Jerome steals. 

"I bet you can’t get in there and take something," Jeremiah says all of the sudden, toying with one of the broken metal ribs. The umbrella is a pathetic thing, all broken, cracked and wonky, and doesn’t really do its job all that well anymore. Sort of like their mother, Jerome muses. "Oh yeah?" he says, let’s his brother grab the umbrella from him so he can stand. "What do you want?"

Jeremiah smiles up at him from under the umbrella. Jerome’s shoulders are already getting wet. "Snickerdoodles?"

Uncle Zach makes the best food, as opposed to their mother who’s cooking barely classifies as edible. Whether it be a chicken soup or cookies with chocolate, that man sure knows how to work a kitchen. Many a time has Jerome snuck his way into their uncle’s truck - the smells just too heavenly delicious for the two to resist - snagging a few cookies here, a couple pastries there, an occasional cooked chicken. Jeremiah usually - always actually - waited outside, to keep watch, he said, and at the time that seemed very reasonable. 

Uncle Zach also happens to give the worst beatings, and he gets quite a few of those. Countless of bruises in all the colours of the rainbow has littered his body; dark red burn marks covering his hands, dull blue fingerprints creeping up his neck, and sickly green bruises from fists, rolling pins and belts tainting his skin for several days. Jeremiah’s skin never looks like that - at least not just yet - and it seems they even then were destined to be unlike. 

And sometimes, he doesn’t even need to shut his eyes for his brother to be there.

Jeremiah sits cross legged on the foot of his bed in the dark cell, with an open book in his lap and a single wonky candle clutched in his hand. He sits close enough to touch, yet far away enough to not hurt, and Jerome would reach out a hand if only he could. In this state - this mind awake, body asleep state - it feels as if his body is glued to the bed, his eyes seemingly the only part of him that can move freely. He can’t speak either, no matter how hard he tries, because his lips just won’t move. He can do nothing but lie there and observe him.

He’s very young; skin smooth and free of imperfections formed over time, frame small and thin under his oversized sweater, and eyes big and youthful. His gaze isn’t on Jerome, as if he has yet to notice him looking, and his eyes move back and forth in a steady pace as he reads. The candle in his hand gives everything it lights up a slight orange tinge, accentuating the colour of Jeremiah’s neatly combed hair and giving his pale skin a healthy glow. The small flame flickers and Jeremiah’s eyes finally meet his own, a hint of a smile on his chapped lips.

"Want me to read to you?"

Jeremiah stands beside his bed, one hand toying with what looks like a lighter, flame appearing and disappearing over and over again. He’s got glasses on, ones with thick frames and nothing but regular glass in them. Every time the flame appears, Jerome spots his bruised skin. He recognises the bruises littering his now flawed skin; the sickly green one on his cheekbone, the dull blue ones on his neck and the dark red ones on his hands, knows exactly where they came from. 

The flame appears again as Jeremiah flicks his thumb, and their eyes meet as he tosses the lighter on the bed. "This should do the trick."

Jeremiah sits on the edge of his bed, hands clutching a cup of some sort of beverage and gaze on something in the dark. He looks different. His glasses aren’t crooked, the frames are thinner and the glass seems to be thicker. His clothes are of fancy looking fabrics in fashionable colours, and fit him perfectly as if they were made just for him. His frame is much taller and bigger, like he has finally gotten some proper food for breakfast, as opposed to whatever crap they were fed when they were younger. He looks very different, yet still kind of like himself, in some way. It’s probably the eyes that have now shifted onto him, and whatever emotions are in them.

"I bet you can’t get out of here and find me." 

And when has Jerome ever said no to him?


End file.
